Overview 

This standard is about preparing budget plans for productions. You will need to produce estimates of production costs using the financial information available to you. You will need to determine what finance each production department needs and produce a budget according to those needs.

You will also need to work closely with the producers and directors and others working in production processes. Your work will need to include estimates for potential contingencies and will also need to assist the project to achieve best value.

 

Performance Criteria

You must be able to:

  1. analyse the brief to identify the production requirements
  2. identify from the schedule the major responsibilities, stages, tasks, and target dates required to deliver the production within budget and to agreed deadlines
  3. identify and time the main production stages and the activities within them
  4. provide allocations of resources against the schedule
  5. identify factors that are likely to cause delays to production activities and provide ideas for plans to deal with these contingencies
  6. use up-to-date information about the production requirements to work out your calculations
  7. calculate the costs of what is needed to cover all stages of the production process
  8. base your costings on current prices and on what you judge to be value for money
  9. use financial information and advice from relevant people
  10. make calculations and estimates in line with production requirements including an allowance for contingencies
  11. produce a budget plan that is consistent with the priorities of the production and shows what each department will spend
  12. check the accuracy of the budget
  13. produce a budget summary in a format that is acceptable to the production team
  14. agree the budget with relevant people
  15. make the budget available to those who need to know

 

Knowledge and Understanding 

You need to know and understand:

  1. what the creative brief is, and the budget and delivery date for production
  2. what responsibilities, stages, tasks and target dates are required for the production
  3. the factors that affect the timing and sequence of tasks, including: continuity; logistics; contract agreement and compliance; religious and cultural holidays; climate; daylight hours
  4. how to identify resource requirements from the creative brief and storyboards
  5. how to identify options that offer value for money
  6. the funding requirements of departments at different stages of the production process
  7. production budgeting and control packages to be used
  8. what the parameters of the production are and if the production is ‘in the future’
  9. awareness of inflation percentage for the coming year
  10. the impact of overseas filming or shooting on the timing and sequence of production activities and resource requirements
  11. when changes to the schedule may be necessary and how to assess the changes in terms of cost, logistics, and health and safety
  12. the current standard prices (going rates) for resources
  13. what different types of financial information and advice there are and when and how to access them
  14. what issues may occur to affect the production budget, how to take them into account when estimating production costs and the contingencies for resolving them
  15. who has the right to access budgetary information and why it is necessary to securely store budgetary information
  16. which budgeting and expenditure control package to use
  17. what historical payments have been made prior to pre-production